


happily ever after doesn’t exist (yes it does)

by Omeganixtra



Series: The Sin Bin - Kink Meme Collection [3]
Category: Dragon Age - All Media Types, Dragon Age: Origins
Genre: Alpha!Zevran, Bonding, Explicit Sex, F/M, Growing Up, I am so sorry mum, Knotting, Omega!Tabris, Tabris has some major issues with society, a/b/o au, but I swear they're not, heat - Freeform, those two tags sound kinda dodgey next to each other
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-06-03
Updated: 2019-06-03
Packaged: 2020-04-06 01:40:12
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 10,754
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/19052671
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Omeganixtra/pseuds/Omeganixtra
Summary: Kallian is an Elf. She is also an Omega.These are facts that she has lived with for the past nineteen years, through both good and hard times.But Kallian doesn’t care.— The ABO AU that I needed to write and no one asked for





	happily ever after doesn’t exist (yes it does)

**Author's Note:**

> Exactly what it says on the tin
> 
> edit as per 7/6-19: fixed some grammar and some unfinished sentences

Kallian is an elf. She is also an Omega.

These are facts that she has lived with for the past nineteen years, through both good and hard times.

But Kallian doesn’t care.

Kallian is not stupid—she knows that it puts her in a precarious situation, and her mum probably knew it too because Kallian was barely old enough to run without falling before Adaia put a dagger in her hand, despite Cyrion’s tangible disapproval.

Adaia didn’t give a damn. She wanted their daughter to know how to defend herself from unwanted attention, no matter how or what nature she presented when it would come to that.

Her mum didn’t give a damn. So, of course, Kallian didn’t either.

But Adaia dies.

Her mum—her beautiful, wild mum who laughs when human guards propositions her or scowls when the traders demands twice the amount of coin of her than of the human women, who’s taught her to wield a dagger and pick a lock and climb a tree as if she was born Dalish and not in the City—dies.

Humans, her father says when she’s old enough to ask.

 _Alphas_ is left unsaid, because saying things like that typically ends with the Alienage quarantined and food shortages, and no one in the Alienage can afford that with the winter so close and with food already now being carefully rationed.

But Kallian knows. She knows and vows revenge and scowls whenever the humans dare enter her home.

 

 

* * *

  

 

She properly presents when she is twelve summers old.

It’s a right proper chaos when it happens and her da locks her in the house for seven days with Shianni and some of the other girls from the Alienage. The only one who can leave and sees to them is the kind old Beta from the Chantry who is assigned to Denerim’s elves.

Kallian has never been so scared in her life.

This is her own nature, her own body, that poses a problem, but it’s a problem that she can’t make go away with her dagger or scathing remarks.

She hates it.

 

 

* * *

 

 

Suddenly everything is different.

Talks of Alphas seem to begin almost every time she goes outside her home. Talks of how she has a duty when she is old enough to marry is thrown around as if the women of the Alienage are discussing a new trick to get tricky spots out of laundry, or as if the men are discussing the next harvesting season. She is even pulled aside by the Chantry Mother who was with her when she presented after a few days and is given a small, nondescript phial.

“It will help with your Heats,” is all the old woman says before Kallian is let out of the small office in the Chantry. “Come to me when you need more.”

Kallian dumps it all down the sewer-drain as soon as she’s outside the building.

 

 

* * *

 

 

The boys won’t play with her anymore—too scared of accidentally hurting her or being too rough with her, now that she has been revealed to be an Omega. The girls all titter around her and suddenly talks of boys and romance and how maybe she is going to get whisked away by a handsome man astride a silver horse.

Kallian hates it.

Shianni and Soris are the only ones who still treat her like normal, as if she’s still the same Kallian from before she presented as a bloody Omega.

Kallian clings to it like a vicious dog guarding its last morsels of food.

Life continues on and she hates every moment of it.

 

 

* * *

 

  

Kallian is sixteen summers old when she discovers how the humans see her.

She is on her way home from the market, flour and vegetables in her basket, when someone stops her and she turns to see a human leering down at her and before she knows it, he’s joined by two others and they’re dragging her towards an alley.

The first one’s whisper of “Look at you, pretty, little Omega.” has Kallian stiff in moments and wanting to throw up when his tongue licks her ear.

None of the other marketgoers around them says anything, that’s probably the most disgusting part out of all of it.

Her assailants’ reek of Alpha and want and unwashed body. Kallian feels distress beginning to build in the back of her mind, but she clutches her basket to her chest and keeps her cool.

Her mum did not raise an imbecile.

When the first one paws at her arm, she hauls the basket at him as hard as she can, stomps on another’s toe and darts out of the alley like demons are biting at her heels.

Kallian doesn’t stop until she’s behind the gates to the Alienage and safe in her home, in her own bed, where everything smells of her and da and _safety and_ _home_. It doesn’t stop her from spending hours in the bathing chamber with a scrubbing cloth and soap in order to try and get out the smell of dominance and Alpha and everything else that has invaded her _space_.

Cyrion refuses to let her leave the Alienage unescorted after that when he finds her still at it when he comes home that evening, and for the first time Kallian actually agrees with him.

But she doesn’t stop hating the necessity of it.

 

 

* * *

 

 

When it’s Satinalia that year, Kallian kisses a boy for the very first time, if only to find out what all the fuss is about, of course.

It’s a sweet boy, a Beta from Amaranthine’s Alienage visiting some family here in Denerim, and he’s gone the next day.

He’s horrible at kissing, though, Kallian decides.

But, she thinks much later, she doesn’t hate it.

 

 

* * *

 

 

Her very first Heat happens when she is eighteen summers old, arrives like lightning from above, and it is nothing short of a damn nightmare if there’s ever been one.

Everything in her body screams for release, companionship— _anything_ to get the ache inside of her to subside.

And she’s… sticky.

 _So sticky_.

Her thighs are _soaked_ with slick, and her bedsheets even more so, as her body pulses and yearns and screams for… for _something_ , preferably an Alpha as well to lick her and kiss her a _nd love her and bite her ohyespleasejustbitebitebitebiteBITE HER—FILL HER—KNOT HER_!

Kallian slips a hand between her thighs and brings herself over the brink, forces herself to ignore the slippery sounds that her hand makes as it rubs against her soaked sex. It makes the ache go away, at least for a few moments, before something inside of her contracts painfully and then everything is burning once more.

The moans that escape her are embarrassingly loud and horrible and she is never going to live this down if anyone outside can hear her. They probably can.

Kallian wants to die. At least that’s what’s running through her mind at the time, along with copious amounts of less-than-chaste thoughts about some of the men in the Alienage and even a few about that one sweet human man in the market who sells apples on Sundays.

She can hear chants from the Revered Mother outside her door—Cyrion vacated the premises as soon as her scent had changed—and howls and curses at the damn crone in return. She can take her opinions about the Maker and Andraste and the Chant and that fucking potion she wanted Kallian to drink and then stick it where the Maker’s light will never shine.

A new wave of heat and want rolls over her and Kallian _keens_.

She still hates her lot in life.

 

 

* * *

 

 

It’s only after her very first Heat that Cyrion begins to look for a mate, a Bonded, for his little girl.

Kallian screams and shakes her head and demands that he stop _immediately_ because she might be an Omega, but, by the Maker’s balls, she will have her own fucking say in this.

 _Mum would be proud of me_ , she thinks when the two of them begin a fight in earnest, _Mum did not raise a fool in me!_

She says as much and it’s the first time her da ever strikes her.

Kallian runs from the house and hides in the attic of the old mill that no longer works and feels generally sorry for herself as she listens to her da look for her for the rest of the day.

She only comes home when the hunger gnaws in her stomach after three days.

 

 

* * *

 

 

Her betrothed’s name is Nelaros.

He’s an Alpha, because of-fucking-course he is, works as a smith in the Highever Alienage, by all accounts an absolutely wonderful match.

And Kallian hates his guts without ever having met him.

 

 

* * *

 

 

They dress her up in the same dress her mum got married in, paints her face with kohl and powders and rouge and weaves colorful flowers in her hair on the day of her wedding.

Kallian feels like vomiting the entire time.

They tell her that she is _beautiful_ and that this is _such_ a special day and she is _so lucky_ to be Bonded already at the age of nineteen, that her marriage will bring new life to the Alienage because of the dowry that Nelaros has paid to Cyrion for the union.

The scathing look that Shianni sends _that_ particular elf is almost enough to make Kallian smile. It probably would, if she was drunk.

But then Vaughan Kendells arrives with his leering friends, smelling of alcohol and lust and the Kallian curses the day that she ever laid eyes upon the sadistic whoreson.

 

 

* * *

 

 

When the Grey Warden shows up and looks at her, there’s a moment where Kallian sees a kindred soul. She sees someone who would only wither if he was placed in a role that society decided for him and therefore makes himself as free as he possibly can.

Kallian feels, for the first time in who knows how long, intrigued.

It scares her.

But she doesn’t hate it.

 

 

* * *

 

 

Her wedding day is supposed to be a day of celebration, of her finally joining the ranks of adults as a married and Bonded woman.

It ends in blood and tears and a conscription to an Order she never even thought would matter.

The groom is dead, one of her bridesmaids too, but Kallian stands tall with the blood of Vaughan dripping from her borrowed sword and staining the white dress that her mum wore on her own wedding. Shianni—her sweet, sweet cousin who’s as hotheaded as a sailor drunk on moonshine—won’t be alright for a while, perhaps never, but she is safe once more. Safe because of Kallian. Because of naked steel diving into soft, giving, _human_ flesh and Adaia’s lessons.

Kallian has never felt as free as in that moment.

She should hate it. By all accounts this should be something that would have Kallian scream and roar because her _freedom_ is being taken away, her _choice_ doesn’t matter in this.

A trickle of blood from a cut on her cheek runs down and soaks the collar of her dress. She probably looks like a right savage—smelling like blood and piss and seed and human and, most importantly, _Omega_.

But she doesn’t.

Because Duncan looks at her and _doesn’t_ see _just_ an Omega. Duncan sees a capable, young woman who would do whatever it takes to get free from this stifling Abyss that is the Alienage. Duncan accepts that she is different but won’t treat her like glass. Duncan offers her a hand when the guards arrive and wants nothing more than to solve the ugly mess that Kallian’s left behind, and the crazy bastard only smiles when she bites off to the shoulder.

 _And Kallian adores him for it_.

 

 

* * *

 

 

Duncan is a Beta and Kallian is quite sure that for once the Maker has listened to her ravings and screaming in the depths of night and sent her a savior in disguise.

He’s a warrior. He’s a fighter. He’s a survivor.

He’s a Grey Warden Commander, too.

And he’s taking her to Ostagar.

 

 

* * *

 

 

He sends her to the healers as soon as they arrive and she is finished making insulting quips at the King for not knowing what is going on in his own Capital.

She meets Wynne who is a mage and a Beta and so otherworldly grandmotherly that she earns an instant warm place in Kallian’s young, still-innocent heart.

It grows slightly colder, though, when she hands Kallian the same dratted phial that the Revered Mother did all those years ago, and Kallian can’t quite keep the grimace off her face when Wynne looks at her sympathetically.

“You’ll thank me later,” the older Beta says with an air of finality. “If your Heat hits in the midst of a war camp and you don’t have this, you’ll not last the night.”

Kallian takes it this time and doesn’t pour it out over the old Tevinter stones, no matter how hard the temptation is.

Wynne watches her every move as she swallows the liquid and grimaces at the bitter taste of it.

She hates it. Every single fucking moment of it.

 

 

* * *

 

 

Alistair is… something.

Kallian’s not quite sure _what_ he is, but his scent is _weird_ and smells uncertain—almost as if he is almost something but not quite.

The boy seems happy that she’s there and soon will be a Warden just like him, no doubt starved for some peers in this strange outside world where everyone she sees is old enough to be either her da or grandpa. At first she finds it strange, that someone—and especially an Alpha like him—could be alienated, but then she remembers that tight family bonds isn’t something that _everyone_ gets to experience.

But still. His scent is weird.

It’s only much later, when she’s knee-deep in Darkspawn guts and collecting small phials of their blood and looking for old treaties in the middle of nowhere that she remembers the scent as similar to that of the Templars in the Chantry back in Denerim.

But still, Alistair is blessedly unaware of her nature so the potion is apparently working and Kallian is busy screaming at herself for being so fucking stupid all those years ago. So much shit could have been avoided if she had just taken the fucking potion like a good, little girl and done as the adults had told her, but _no_. No, she had to be a rebel, to say ‘screw you all’ to the world around her and drag her family and friends through an absolute hellscape, no doubt.

Just another thing she can start hating with a burning passion.

 

 

* * *

 

 

If she thought that her Heat had been unbearable it is _nothing_ compared to what she feels when she downs the goblet of Darkspawn blood and feels everything inside of her _shift_.

She blacks out, a right proper blessing if she’s ever experienced one before, and _dreams_.

In the days and weeks and years to come, Kallian will come to hate that too.

Just one more thing taken from her.

Something as sweet and innocent as a good night’s sleep.

 

 

* * *

 

 

In the end Duncan does throw a last bout of good, old-fashioned Omega-protecting in her direction when Alistair and Kallian are ordered to light a fucking tower while the “real warriors” take care of the battle below.

It’s horseshit if she’s ever heard it but Kallian is a Grey Warden now and so she’ll obey.

Even if she hates it.

 

 

* * *

 

 

The aftermath of Ostagar is… well. It _is_ , Kallian surmises when she wakes up and finds her shoulder screaming in pain from Darkspawn arrows and Alistair catatonic.

“What are we going to do?” Alistair gripes when the two of them are sitting at the edge of the lake beside Flemeth’s hut. “We’re without weapons, supplies… Maker, we don’t even have any allies.”

“Bull _shit_ ,” Kallian hisses, ignoring Alistair’s confusion. “If we think like that, if we just roll over as if we’re _nothing_ , it means they win. It means that pricks like Loghain and that whoreson Kendell gets to walk free and _I won’t fucking stand for it_!”

She’s worked herself up into a right frenzy by the end of it—“ _imagine that!_ ” she wants to scream at her da! His little girl, his little Omega daughter swearing and yelling up a right proper storm—and it’s a miracle that Alistair hasn’t scented the no-doubt heady mixture of distress and Omega and _anger_. So, so much anger.

It’s clogging up her own nostrils hard enough for her to almost stop trying to breathe for a few moments.

But they leave the same day to assemble an army and to make a whole damn nation listen to her voice, a furious Kallian and a confounded Alistair and a jagged Morrigan, who is so wonderfully sharp and Alpha and tired of Alistair’s horrible jokes from the get-go, that Kallian doesn’t know if she should smack the older woman silly or draw her in for a tight hug.

She decides on neither, for now.

 

 

* * *

 

 

After Flemeth’s rescue and Morrigan joining their little group and Kallian somehow getting a _dog_ of all possible things, it becomes a right proper mess.

They trek across the country, recruiting Qunari and a bard-turned-lay sister and alcoholic dwarven berserkers and suave, Antivan assassins.

Oh yes, can’t forget about the assassins.

Kallian prides herself on not giving a damn about the nature of her companions, she hasn’t given a damn about Alistair and Morrigan sniping at each other and filling the camp’s air with so much _Alpha_ scent that sometimes it feels as if she is being choked, because it’s just who they are and they’ll probably get over it at some point.

Either that, or screw each other’s brains out in a rut—Kallian’s not really sure which one of the options will be the end result yet.

Sten keeps to himself, a strange trait for an Alpha in Kallian’s humble opinion, but then again, he _is_ a Qunari and they’re bound to have different customs up north. He certainly acts different from any other Alpha that Kallian has ever met.

With Leliana, Kallian is hard pressed to figure out just why she adores the exhaustingly girly Beta, even as Leliana uses every single trick she can think off to endear herself with tantalizing stories and sweet songs and girlish talks long into the night sometimes when neither of them have watch duty.

Oghren is mostly ignored, and happily ignores back, by most of the others when he isn’t making a clean path through the Darkspawn or bandits that decide to cross their paths.

But Zevran Arainai… _oooooh_ , Kallian isn’t sure if she should slap him as hard as she possibly can or bend over laughing whenever he enters her presence.

The first sign that he is _Trouble_ comes from the very simple fact that he was hired to kill Alistair and her by Loghain. The second that he is utterly insufferable to be around for any length of time, seeing as he has apparently made it his life’s mission to flirt with anything that walks on two legs and has a working pulse. The third, and final one, is the fact that Zevran Arainai, former member of the Antivan Crows and a playboy if she’s ever met one, is a Maker-be-damned _Alpha_.

That dratted elf riles her up like no man has done before with his glib remarks and his rolling accent and the copious amounts of scent-marking that he does around the camp. The last thing isn’t even that big of a deal, because the others do it all as well, with the exception of Sten, but Kallian is just about utterly convinced that the Qun has done _something_ to him to make him resist all the normal—for the South, at least—urges that an Alpha ought to have by this point in their life. But there is just something about the way that Zevran moves, the way he talks, the way he _behaves_ , that makes Kallian want to either tear him fucking limb from limb or curl up next to him, preferably under copious amounts of blankets because Ferelden’s nights are _cold_ , no matter what any native bumpkin will say.

There are times, many, many, _many_ times where she questions what exactly went through her mind when she accepted the assassin’s help against the Darkspawn and Loghain but then he neatly disposes of any Darkspawn coming even _close_ to her or Leliana or Wynne and she is abruptly reminded of _why exactly_.

Just another thing she’ll no doubt come to hate in this Maker-be-damned quest of theirs.

 

 

* * *

 

 

When the bastard begins calling her “mia cara” and “tesoro” and who knows what else in Antivan she snaps at him, bares her teeth and does everything else she can think off to make him _back off_.

She is not some notch in his bedpost, some easy whore for him to charm with a grin and a few choice words.

Kallian spends the rest of that particular week curled up with Leliana during nighttime and thoroughly enjoys just basking in the safety and lack of pressure that the Beta emits.

 

 

* * *

 

 

However, all good things must come to an end, eventually.

She makes it six, almost seven months until the potion that the sweet old mage from Ostagar, Wynne, gave her when Duncan first brought her to the war camp is all used up.

There’s not a drop left.

Kallian is scared shitless for the first time in _years_ —since she was sixteen and those humans closed in but that was then and this is now where she has a _sword_ and a _Mabari_ and _any of those fuckers can try and take her_.

She makes it another two weeks before the secret is out.

And it is utter pandemonium.

When they find out that she’s an Omega, the tantrum can probably be heard far and wide across the entire fucking Bannorn.

It’s _Sten_ of all people who notices her change in scent from bland and non-descriptive to young and fertile and _Omega_.

One day, around lunchtime, when they’re all sitting down and enjoying the brief respite in trekking across the country, making their way through the mountains and down towards the Circle Tower, is when it happens.

Sten inhales deeply, frowns and looks around camp as if he’s utterly confused before his gaze settles on Kallian with all the subtlety of a high dragon landing atop the White Spire in Orlais.

“Warden, you are Omega,” is all he says. “Why are you without your Bonded?”

Silence reigns. Utter. Complete. Silence.

And then all Hell breaks loose.

“You’re an Omega,” Alistair looks pale as he forces out the words after tasting the air and confirming it for himself, rabbit stew sitting forgotten in his hands. “Oh, Maker’s breath, _you’re an_ _Omega_.”

Kallian’s shocked scowl is scathing enough to feel like she just set him on fire.

“We heard your words the first time, fool,” Morrigan snipes from her spot across the fire. “You making an impression of a gaping fish does little to improve my opinion of you.”

“No, no, no, you don’t understand, Morrigan!” Alistair snaps. “Kallian is an _Omega_! We have four— _four fucking Alphas_ in the group: Sten, Zevran, you and myself. If she goes into heat, if any of us get even a _whiff_ of her while Kallian is in that state, we are all royally _fucked_!”

“So, the solution would no doubt be to choose someone to Bond her with, no?” Morrigan asks. “‘Tis what seems to be the easiest solution to me.”

If it wasn’t for the fact that they’re discussing Kallian’s life (and sex-life) as if she’s not even present, she would probably be impressed over witnessing the first somewhat-civil conversation between Alistair and Morrigan. Instead she just feels achy and shocked and tense.

“I can hear you, you know,” Kallian snarls as she slowly puts down her own stew-bowl and gets up on her feet. “I am _not_ going to be handed over to _any of you_ like some slab of meat for you to slobber over like a damn Mabari!”

“And no one is asking you to,” Alistair agrees and shifts uneasily from one foot to the other. “But, Kallian, you—”

“But nothing! My nature has not mattered before, it will not matter now!”

“Do you realize what this means?”

“What it means is that my body apparently thought it’d be a grand idea to make me howl and scream for a sexual partner at least _once_ every few years,” Kallian spits. She only scowls further when Alistair steps closer, when he invades her _space_. “Back off, Alistair.”

“We’re going to the Circle,” Alistair decides, for once actually taking charge, and putting every ounce of Alpha authority that he can into those words. “We are going to the Circle and are not leaving until you have some damn scent suppressants.”

“Excuse me?!”

“I am not risking you out here in the damn wilderness because you’ve run out of something to mask your scent.”

From there it devolves into Alistair being a right cunt with his angry posturing and Kallian doing her utmost best to refuse the urge to roll on her back and bare her neck in ‘proper’ Omega fashion when traces of Alpha authority makes it into the whole fucking thing.

It’s the first time they have a real argument, a right proper one with loud screaming and pulsing scents and both of them walking in the opposite direction of the other one _and Kallian hates it_.

 

 

* * *

 

 

She is on the outskirts of camp when Zevran finds her, busy with petting Chubby’s stomach and scowling at the world around her.

He sits down beside her and looks at the view alongside her. When choosing not to focus on exactly _why_ she’s actually sitting there, it is quite a nice day with a bright blue sky and the sun is shining, despite it beginning to enter the Fall season.

“Are you… alright?”

Kallian doesn’t say a word. She doesn’t trust her voice, not right now, and instead settles with a brief shake of her head.

“I felt… _horrible_ ,” she spits out not long after. “Like everything inside of me just wanted to obey Alistair and agree with whatever he said because it would _make it stop_!”

The most embarrassing thing about this whole ordeal is that all of a sudden, she feels the back of her eyeballs burn, as if she is seconds away from crying. She’s never been a crybaby before, and she is certainly not going to begin on it now just because her apparent scent suppressor is all used up. Her dignity would never allow it.

“Dear Warden, did no one ever explain to you what the differences between the natures were?”

Zevran sounds… surprised, honestly confounded for once, without a hint of smugness or sleaze.

“My experience with all of this was an old Mother from the Chantry telling me that the finest task for an Omega is to be Bonded as quickly as possible and produce many, many children for their mate. Alphas are our providers and caretakers, as if we’re just _animals_ ,” Kallian is hissing and snarling by the end of her short tirade, but winces when she sees Zevran’s nostrils flare for just the briefest of moments.

Her getting all worked up over nothing can’t be easy on him, either. Especially not when her scent is probably rolling off her in _waves_.

Nonetheless he seems to shake it off after a few moments and instead reaches out to take her hand in his.

“My dear,” he begins, sounding far more serious than she has ever heard him before. “I believe that we have some things to clear up.”

And so it begins.

 

 

* * *

 

 

Hours go by as Zevran quietly explains, patiently teaches her what the Revered Mother in Denerim should have done already, and if a few tears escape her eyes every now and then, he is considerate enough to ignore it.

He explains the many facets of an Alpha’s job when they have Bonded with an Omega, or at least how it is back in Antiva—not just caretaking and providing for the Omega, but ensuring their safety and comfort, no matter what; to treat them with respect and care and love; to be ready to defend them, no matter what. Should children come of the union, which almost always happens, they would have to be included as well. And attacking or assaulting an Omega like those humans had done to her when she was younger was very much the same as committing social suicide in bright daylight. No one would _dare_ let their family near such an individual.

Kallian has never longed more for such a place.

When Zevran speaks of his home, of how people treat each other up there, she longs to experience the same thing.

A sense of betrayal and outrage sits in her stomach now, gnawing and eating and aching. It’s not a very nice feeling, not nice at all.

Throughout the whole thing Zevran has kept her hand cradled in his, explaining how it should help ground her with the scent of an Alpha nearby when she had attempted to tug it back and he hadn’t allowed it.

Kallian doesn’t know if she should slap him silly or hug him until her arms grow tired.

Right now she is leaning most towards the latter, if she is being completely honest with herself.

“I could scent-mark you,” Zevran offers when he is done explaining. “In theory, any of those with an Alpha nature among us could do it, and it would be easier.”

“Easier how?”

“You would not have to worry about garnering unwanted attention from any friendly strangers we might meet,” he explains calmly. “It would also help ease up the quite frankly disgusting mix of tension and Alpha-posturing in the midst of camp right now.”

“I’ve no doubt it would.”

“Did you know, Sten wanted to march right after you and not let you leave until one of us had Bonded ourselves to you?” he asks with an eyebrow propped up.

Kallian turns around to stare at him in absolute horror. “ _What_?”

“You heard me, my dear.”

“ _No_.”

“Then, I suppose that your options would be the lovely Morrigan, Alistair, or myself, then,” he surmises. “Provided that you would agree to it, of course. I will not pressure you into anything that you would not feel comfortable with.”

And he truly won’t, she realizes. Zevran truly won’t try to assert his authority as an Alpha against her will and force her to do something that she would feel no security from. There’s a small part of her, a part that has begun to grow in size ever since she ran out of suppressants, that croons at his words and makes her want nothing more than to rub against him and bare her neck and say ‘ _yes please, Alpha!’_.

“I don’t… I don’t want some human’s scent all over me,” she shakes her head vehemently as flashes of unwashed bodies and leering eyes appear in her mind. “It’s not—I don’t—I-I mean—”

“There is no need to explain if you are uncomfortable, my dear.”

In that moment Kallian feels her heart crackle just a little bit at Zevran’s words and she nods slowly as a quiet sniffle escapes her and Zevran’s hand releases hers to instead wrap around her shoulders and tug her closer against his side.

The only reason that she is allowing this right now is because he has been nothing but chivalrous and kind so far—at least that is what Kallian tells herself.

A comfortable silence forms as the two of them just continue sitting there. There's no pressure. Only calmness.

She can allow herself to be ordered around this once, she tries to convince herself. This is for the sole purpose of not being an absolute bitch to everyone back in camp and leaving an obnoxious trail of un-bonded Omega in her wake wherever she goes.

“…Do it,” she finally agrees with her head against his shoulder and huddling against his side.

Many things can be said about Zevran Arainai, but inattentive is not one of them.

He is… surprisingly gentle and considerate about the whole thing, taking care to move slowly so she won’t startle at any of his movements and probably being overly careful, but at this point Kallian is beyond caring.

When he picks up her hands and presses his lips against them, making sure to cover every part of her wrists in his scent, her breath hitches loud enough for him to look up from behind dark lashes in question, but Kallian just shakes her head and he returns to the task at hand.

Slowly, methodically, he works his way up both of her arms until he comes to her neck. He waits until she gives him a consenting nod before he leans in close enough for her to get a mouthful of _sweat_ and _blood_ and _leather_ and _Alpha_ and _Zevran_ up her nose. It douses her like a calming potion, makes her pliant and mellow and _so disgustingly Omega_ that she is quite sure she would die of the shame if anyone from her companions, or even worse, _her family_ , could see her right now.

Zevran’s lips press against her pulse, suckles gently to leave behind a thick trace of his scent, and his teeth gently scrape the sensitive spot on the back of her neck where she was told that her future Bonded would put his mark.

All of this is just a precaution, she tells herself. She is only doing this for the good of the group and so she will get some peace and quiet about what she is.

It makes her shiver down to her tippy toes involuntarily and she feels Zevran draw back enough to utter a soft apology. Her answering growl and insistent press against his front has him back against her neck and scentmarking once more in  _seconds_.

Somehow he’s managed to maneuver her into ending up in his lap, with one hand buried in her hair and the other cradling her chin as he finishes up on both sides of her neck to instead begin pressing gentle pecks against every inch of skin he can, without it turning indecent or otherwise more suggestive than it probably already is.

When Zevran finally leans back to inspect his handiwork, he looks well and truly drunk with a glazed look in his eyes and a wide grin on his face.

“You smell…”

“Unwashed? Rancid? Like I’ve just bathed in a Darkspawn’s guts for hours on end?”

One of these days her sarcasm is going to get them all horribly, terribly _slaughtered_.

“ _Heavenly_ ,” Zevran hisses out and apparently just can’t resist rubbing the tip of his nose against her cheek just one more time. “Like _Omega_ and _home_ and _innocence_.”

Kallian blushes a bright red.

 

 

* * *

 

 

When they return to camp Kallian has all of two seconds to get a hold of herself before Alistair is in her face with apologies and careful hands on her shoulders and such a miserable expression on his face that she’s surprised he’s not openly bawling his eyes out at this point.

It is made even _stranger_ when Zevran without as much as a by-your-leave plucks off Alistair’s hands from her person and drags her back. This, of course, results in puffing chests and snarky remarks and a myriad of questions from Alistair about why she smells so strongly of Zevran now and what happened while she was gone and was she safe and did anyone do something to her and _why is she smelling like Zevran_?!

Kallian responds, quite maturely too, by turning on her heel and walking straight to her tent, closes the flap behind her and curls into her blankets.

 _Urgh_ , she groans inwardly, _Alphas…_

 

 

* * *

 

 

Everything gets turned around in the following days between Zevran and her.

He sticks closer to her when they travel, sits beside her every night when they have to stop for the night and even shows up with skins and furs when she complains of the weather turning colder one evening.

It goes on like this for the entire trip to the Circle.

Oh, but it _gets better_.

She arcs an eyebrow at him one night when he spends several minutes glaring directly at Chubby lying in her lap and happily wagging with his tail stump as she rubs his ears and scratches his back. There’s a brief moment where she is utterly confounded as to what is happening, before realizing that she is absolutely _covered_ in Chubby’s scent. Only the briefest remains of Zevran’s scent can be found on her person and the smell of un-Bonded Omega is no doubt beginning to peek through once more.

Kallian finishes up with Chubby as quickly as possible and then proceeds to drag Zevran out of hearing-distance from camp.

They return much later with blushing cheeks and mussed hair and Kallian once more covered from head to toe in the scent of _Alpha_ and _Zevran_.

 

 

* * *

 

 

When her second Heat hits they are barely a week out of the Circle and now joined by sweet, old, familiar Wynne who helped back in Ostagar and now will help again.

Everyone is tired to the bone, doing little else but sleep and eat to replenish the energy lost while they were trapped and lost in both the physical world and the Fade, but Kallian still manages to drag all of her friends out and away from that blasted Tower as soon as she can, and well into the forests surrounding Lake Calenhad, despite how her body screams for rest and her mind for sleep.

But she does it, she gets them out into the wilderness and only lets them stop when they’re half a day’s journey away from the fucking hole in the ground that is, or _was_ , the Circle of Ferelden and the absolute nightmare they found within.

Zevran and Leliana spots a cottage not far from their campsite when they’re out scouting a few days after they leave the lake and hills behind, something that probably once belonged to a woodcutter before being abandoned when the Blight hit and it is unanimously decide to camp not far from it. Everyone promptly collapses after that and refuses to move.

Well.

Everyone but, Kallian, that is.

She… she is acting _weird_ , even by her standards, as she keeps circling the campsite they have made not far from the abandoned cottage. When dinner is served she eats like a ravenous animal, even more so than usual, and actually growls— _growls! Her!_ —when Alistair jokingly says that she’ll have to watch her weight if she keeps going at the pace she has set.

His yelp when Leliana throws one of the gauntlets she’s polishing at him is _priceless_.

Her love for Leliana is then challenged all of a sudden when the woman later has a discussion with Zevran about the daggers they have assembled, standing _way_ too close for comfort, and Kallian proceeds to glare at her from across the camp until the bard finally takes a hint and disappears to go help Wynne instead. Kallian then proceeds to ignore Zevran’s shit-eating grin for the remainder of that particular day, and nips his ear a bit harder than probably intended when she drags him off in the evening for a new bout of scent-marking.

It’s only a few days later that Kallian wakes to a searing, uncomfortable warmth rolling throughout her body and every single one of her senses heightened to the point of pain in the middle of the night. She blinks, mouth dry and her tongue sticking uncomfortable to the roof of her mouth, as she lets out a soft whine almost involuntarily.

Someone shifts beside her, and the movement brushes the scent of _wild_ _flowers_ and _oil_ and _Leliana_ right into her nose.

Kallian twists around and promptly empties her stomach on the bare patch of grass beside her bedding.

There’s a haze settling over her and through it she can hear the faintest of noises as she has probably woken Leliana up with all her shuffling and now retching. A hand touches her shoulder but she recoils instantly because it’s _wrong_ without familiar callouses and the scent is _all wrong because it’s Beta and not Alpha and not Zevran and where is he?!_

_Where is her Alpha?_

“Oh, _Kallian_ ,” Leliana’s voice trickles through the haze but it’s muted as if someone has filled her ears with water. “I’ll be back, don’t worry!”

Then her presence is gone and Kallian gets the faintest caress of fresh air against her heated, burning skin before she gets lost in the muddled mess that is her mind once more.

She has no idea how much time passes.

Everything slowly disappears into a blurry mixture of heat and pain and slick—oh, _so much slick_ —but then there’s fresh air against her overheated body once more and strong, Alpha, _right_ arms lifting her out of the tent that smells like Heat and Omega and slick and the vomit that she threw up in there. The same wonderful hand comes up to wipe the sweat from her brows before it rests at the back of her neck to support her head, and Kallian lets out a highly pitched keen when that action makes her lower body contract and release a gush of slick from between her legs.

Someone— _her Alpha_ , her mind whispers—curses above her and there’s muffled voices all around her.

“—can’t, Zevran. We’re not prepared for this.”

“—leave her like this…—thing must be done!”

At some point she cracks open her eyes but everything is swimming around before her. Even so, she can make out someone with warm, sun-kissed skin and blonde hair above her.

“Z-Zevr—”

“Right here, _amore_ ,” Zevran’s voice trickles through the haze and Kallian feels her lips twitch in a doped smile. “You have caused quite the stir, haven’t you?”

“Think ‘m in ‘eat,” she slurs against his neck and grumbles when she hears his chest rumble with laughter. “ _Alpha_!”

“No shit!” someone hisses nearby, and Kallian only managed to get a quick whiff of _almost-Lyrium_ and _metal_ and _sleep_ and _Alistair_ before a loud growl cuts through the darkness.

“Oh for the love of—Zevran, control yourself!” Leliana gripes somewhere to the side of whatever is happening around her.

Kallian only whines when the thick scent of tension and Alpha is pouring out from all around her, and Zevran’s arms tighten. She croons and tries to make herself smaller, to make herself easier for her Alpha to protect and keep an eye on.

The haze returns and blurs her eyesight to the point that everything around her is reduced to blobs of muted color and a scent-impression.

Zevran’s chest still rumbles and a warm nose presses against her cheek when another needy whine escapes her at the same time as another wave of slick gushes out and her Heat rises high enough to make her see _stars_.

Everything around her goes dark to the sound of furious cursing in what is probably Antivan.

 

 

* * *

 

 

Kallian comes to in total darkness, buried under a small mountain of furs and blankets, with a set of _very_ _warm_ arms around her and something hard poking the small of her, _very naked_ , back.

A rumble fills the silence when she squirms against the tight grip she’s trapped in and then a tongue licks over the back of her neck, over the sensitive gland located there, and Kallian turns to _mush_.

She whines and shuffles with her legs, not even caring at this point how her flesh slides against itself, and one of the hands loosens to instead palm at one of her breasts. Kallian jerks when dagger-calloused fingertips rub against her tender nipple, both of her breasts achy and tender from the Heat, but croons when the action has her body quivering in pleasure.

“Omega,” Zevran’s voice croons against the back of her neck and he presses frantic, wet kisses against the tender skin there. “ _My Omega_.”

Kallian just moans.

Both of his hands trail down her body, caressing and rubbing everywhere all at once and dousing her in his scent as he sets out to explore every single part of her that he now has access to.

Bastard’s probably the one who undressed her too.

The last few bits of coherency that still exists in her brain promptly leaps out the proverbial window when Zevran’s fingers brush against her inner thigh and is immediately coated in the slick that leaks out of her in a steady stream. He growls low in his throat and maneuvers her face into the crook of his neck as his fingers travel closer and closer to where Kallian _aches_.

“ _Alpha_!” she cries out when he stops, mere inches from where she wants to be filled again and again and _again andagainandagain_! “ _Zevran_!”

Her calling out his name like that, all breathy and Heat-addled, must do something to the more primal part of him because he’s upon her like a ravenous beast, kissing and suckling and caressing and his fingers finally slip between her thighs and yes, yes, _yes a thousand times YES_! With the amount of slick that she has produced so far there is no obstruction into her cunt, and his fingers blessedly dips in without any resistance.

It’s divine and it’s amazing and it’s everything that she has ever wanted and why, oh _why_ , has she ever hated her nature before? How could she ever have wanted nothing to do with this aspect of her being before?

No one ever said that she would be making sense during this whole ordeal.

His cock is still pressing against the small of her back, weeping and quite insistent on joining in, but all Kallian can focus on is his lips against the tender patch of skin on the back of her neck and the one hand on her breast and the other buried between her soaked thighs.

Zevran moans, a broken, wonderful sound that has her clenching around his fingers and one of her hands digging into the flesh of his shoulder.

She experiences her first orgasm like this, pulled tight against her Alpha with his fingers buried in her cunt, his mouth against her neck-gland and so absolutely fucking high on the waves of Heat that rolls off her it’s a right proper miracle that her brain hasn’t turned to mush yet.

There’s still plenty of time for that to happen, though.

Kallian feels her peak hit and she clenches around Zevran’s fingers, desperate to move her hips and ride his fingers to prolong the pleasure that sizzles through her body, and with every pulse of it that spreads, she feels a calmness fuzz the edges of her mind.

She lets out an absolutely pathetic whine that would have had her reeling if she had been in possession of all her faculties when her Alpha lets his fingers slip out of her, and shakes her head as much as the space allows because _fuck no_ is he leaving her unfulfilled with just one fucking orgasm.

There is still a part of her that screams and cries and howls for something bigger than a few fingers to fill her. Something to tie them together, something to knot her and fill her and fuck her until she can barely move and the only name she knows is his, is _Zevran_.

He shushes her and presses gentle kisses to her flushed cheek, calms her distress with rumbles in his chest and rubbing his skin against hers as he slowly turns her around so they can face each other.

“Z-Zevran,” she begs him and burrows against him, nose against the column of his neck and her lips pressing against the pulse-point there before he can even muster a coherent answer to her. “Zev, _please_.”

“ _Amore_ ,” he groans and then chuckles at her impatient actions. “My lovely Warden, there is plenty of time.”

Her answering whine to his words has him shudder against her and his hips thrust forward without him even thinking about it, desperate to be buried in her tight, wet cunt.

“Zevran,” Kallian chants beneath him as she bucks against his hips, once more desperate for the pleasure he had given her moments before, utterly enslaved to the desires and needs of her Heat.

“I am going to take you,” he rasps into her ear and grinds his slickened cock against her, groaning from the stimulation. “And I am going to _knot you_ , and take you, again and again and again until you are full of my seed, until it leaks from your cunt, and you bear my mark and you’re _mine_!”

“ _Yes_!” she hisses, bucks against him once more.

“No one will ever take you from me,” he groans and grinds against her. “ _Kallian_!”

When he finally enters her Kallian _screams_.

Her arms are around his neck, her grip tight enough to ache but it’s the right kind of ache and both of them revel in it.

He rips through her maidenhood and soothes her cries and tears with sweet kisses and gentle pecks and fingers wiping away the tears with the most careful of motions.

Later, when the Heat has abated, she will have him as slowly and tenderly as he can, but right now everything will be _hard_ and _fast_ and bringing her to pleasure until she forgets the world around them.

Their moans echo in the small hut as they desperately rut against each other, both of them nearing their climax with every motion. Something hard rubs against Kallian down where the two of them are joined, and a flare of pain yanks a sudden squeal from her when that something, _Zevran’s knot_ , finally slips inside of her tight channel.

Kallian’s moan at the intrusion has Zevran rest his forehead against her sweat-soaked shoulder as he grinds his knot against her, finally fully inside of her, and he slips his own arms around her as the knot inside of her cunt swells and interlocks the two of them together.

Their continuing grind against each other only intensifies as their natures takes over, and Kallian blissfully allows herself to be taken again and again by Zevran, _her Zevran, her Alpha_! When he tenses above her and jerks his hips against hers in irregular motions, she is worried for only the briefest of moments before she feels spurts of warm liquid, his seed, fill her and locked inside of her by his knot.

With a croon she huddles as close as she can, her legs wrapping around the small of his back, and allows herself to drift into a haze of pleasure and safety and _Alpha_.

He’ll take care of her, after all, and she doesn’t hate it.

 

 

* * *

 

 

When he finally marks her, Kallian is pleasantly sore from the three rounds of vigorous, Heat-addled sex they’ve had so far, and too languid to properly acknowledge what he is doing.

Zevran is once more locked inside of her, this time from behind, and busy distracting her by painting invisible patterns on her skin with his lovely, talented fingers, when his mouth suddenly closes around the back of her neck and then the most agonizing pain she has ever felt in her life washes over her as his teeth comes down, breaks her skin and fills his mouth with her blood.

Kallian wails and twists violently beneath him, shrieking when she pulls on the knot and _that_ particular actions sends sharp pangs of pain through her lower body as well.

Above her Zevran growls as he pins her in place, teeth retracting from her tender neck so he can lick and shush and soothe her agony. She is vaguely aware of him purring deep in his chest, calming her and apologizing with gentle kisses when his tongue isn’t laving at the swollen flesh.

She hiccups as her body slowly calms beneath his, whimpers his name like a child and begs for him to make it all stop, open and laid bare as the Bond blossoms between them and ties them together.

This… this, Kallian isn’t sure if she hates or not. It’s still too early to tell.

 

 

* * *

 

 

At some point she wakes to find herself utterly alone in the quiet, dark room that smells of her and Zevran and sex and seed and slick and _them_.

For a moment she is absolutely dazzled by the fact that she is here, in a den, with Zevran here to take care of everything that she’ll need. Her eyes blink slowly as they struggle to accommodate to the small amount of daylight that filters in through the sole window in the wall farthest from here.

She grumbles and rubs the back of her neck, winces when her fingers brush against a still-healing, tender patch of skin that now holds the bite signalling to the rest of the world that Zevran Arainai is her Alpha. Her other arm reaches out beside her and feels blindly for her partner.

But Zevran isn’t there, isn’t right beside her like he’s _supposed to be_ , and Kallian can’t quite hold back the broken cry that escapes her the very moment that she realizes just that. It hits her with all the subtlety of a club to the stomach and the tears run down her cheeks in seconds.

Her hands clench in the sweat- and sex-matted furs as she cries and calls for her mate, her Bonded, to come and find her because she _aches_ and she still _wants_ and _he isn’t here to make it all better_. Distress is no doubt rushing off her in _waves_ , but she can’t even think coherently when want and fear and lust and distress rushes through her entire body and mixes together into something that she can’t quite place in her current state. She reaches for the Bond, desperate to feel him, to search for him and call him back to her where he belongs, and there he is! Furious and wanting and aching just as much for her as she is for him, but he’s still gone, away from here, from their den, and she _wails_.

The Bond is wide open and she lets him feel every single part of her that _aches_ for him, that wants him there with her, and for a brief moment she can almost physically hear the roar of her name that he lets back at her through the connection that they now share.

Zevran bounds through the door, but how much time has passed is unknown to her, and audibly chokes when the wave of her distress and tears hit him.

He is by her side in seconds, gathering her up in his arms and huddling her close to his chest as he shushes and apologizes and mutters absolute nonsense into her ears.

Kallian is beyond caring as she hauls his mouth down to hers and tears at the clothing that now covers and separates his body from hers as the Heat consumes them both.

 

 

* * *

 

 

It goes on like this for a week.

Seven blessed days filled with the most wonderous, amazing that Kallian has ever had, and has her happily curled around her Bonded like ivy crawling up the trunk of a tree.

She wakes one morning to fingers caressing the back of her neck and tangling in her hair and finds that the all-consuming burn of her Heat is gone, instead replaced by a dull ache between her legs and a firm soreness in just about every other part of her.

“Good morning, my dear.”

Zevran’s voice is like cool water over a burn and she makes a noise before burrowing closer to him under the furs.

“Kallian,” he laughs at her antics and tugs at her hair. “ _Amore_ , we _do_ have to get up at some point.”

“No,” she denies with her mouth against his chest and presses a kiss against the skin above his nipple. “Don’t want to.”

“You… are a demanding taskmistress, my dear,” Zevran’s voice is strained now and he groans when she crawls over him to press wet, heady kisses against his throat and chin and lips and _oh yes_.

With a giggle she lets him pull her down hard against him, helps him guide his cock inside her once more, and screams his name as he rides her into an explosion of pleasure.

 

 

* * *

 

 

Their little den gets breeched after the eighth day and in strides both Leliana and Wynne, the only safe bets to get closer out of the whole group, to the sight of Kallian braiding back Zevran’s tousled hair, while the assassin in question smiles as wide as he can.

“Urgh, you two are disgustingly cute right now,” Leliana snickers and has to turn away when Kallian’s scowl only makes the scene before them even more surreal. “Alistair is going to pop a blood vessel.”

“Alistair can shove his opinions and blood vessels where the sun doesn’t shine,” Kallian bites at them and nuzzles closer to Zevran from behind. “I am out of fucks to give.”

“Think about the wording before you speak sometimes, Warden,” Wynne sighs with all the weariness that only an elderly woman Who Has Seen And Dealt With Too Much Shit can have. “Now, get decent. We’ve still the Brecilian Forest to conquer before we can march on Denerim.”

 

 

* * *

 

 

Leliana is right.

Alistair _snaps_.

And Kallian cackles inwardly throughout the entire argument that ensues.

“We never should have let them scent-mark each other like this, Leliana, this was a horrible idea!”

“It was the easiest way to fix the problem at hand,” Leliana shoots back, just as heatedly, and oh, but there’s a small part of Kallian that wishes that she can be as assertive and sure of herself, because by all accounts then it sounds as if sweet and Beta-natured Leliana is firmly putting an Alpha into place.

But not Kallian’s. Oh no, he can take care of himself, no problems there.

“The easiest solution was that hut, Alistair. It as secluded enough that none of their activities would be disturbed, while still being close enough for us to defend, should something happen.

“You’ll have the whole place reeking for _weeks_ ,” someone—probably Alistair—snaps. “Oh Maker, we are _fucked_.”

“Technically, it was necessary for only one here to be fucked.”

“Keep your smarmy remarks for yourself, _assassin_!”

“Then kindly keep your own as well, templar!”

Kallian feels content, safe, despite the imminent threat that both she and everyone she holds dear stands against, for the first time in _years_.

And she doesn’t hate it.

 

 

* * *

 

 

They take the Brecilian by storm and marches to Redcliffe with the strength of dwarves and elves and mages by their side.

From there they comb the Frostbacks, finds the Ashes of a prophet centuries dead and returns victoriously to heal a dying Arl and take back Ferelden _with a vengeance_.

Before she knows it, they stand in Denerim, in her home, with the backing of nobility and her Alpha by her side and Kallian feels as if she could move _mountains with her will alone._

 

 

* * *

 

 

Everything goes right and wrong and all kinds of fucked up from there.

 

 

* * *

 

 

When they strip her of everything down to her smalls and hurls her into a cell barely big enough to move across, Kallian feels the first bouts of fear set in.

She can’t help it with everything around smelling of death and fear and distress.

The Bond pulses inside of her mind, tells her of Zevran’s frantic search for her as he tears through guards and hounds idiotic enough to stand between the two of them.

Kallian just closes her eyes and prays, _begs_ , for him to come for her.

 

 

* * *

 

 

The last guard between her and her Alpha apparently gets it into his head that they’ll spare his life if he negotiates.

He’s dragging her out by the hair when the first echoes of screams can be heard from down the hallway and has a dagger pointed at her throat when the door flies open to reveal Zevran covered in blood from head to toe and a just as filthy Leliana right by his side.

Zevran’s eyes narrow when he takes in the scene before him and Kallian swears to whatever deity that listens that she can almost _taste_ the murderous intent that erupts within her Bonded upon seeing another man’s hands all over _his_ Bonded, _his_ Omega!

The guard is dead before he can even muster a threat.

Zevran is infinitely gentle as he picks open the handcuffs that chafes her skin and presses his lips to the places where the metal has broken through enough for blood to trickle down her hands in small rivulets.

The sob she lets out upon seeing him again is almost not-quite-human and she throws herself at him without thought, not caring for a moment that he is covered in blood and quivering with barely-held back rage.

She has never loved him more.

 

 

* * *

 

 

No one says a word when Zevran throws open the door to the main hall of Eamon’s residence, carrying Kallian in his arms and an absolutely _furious_ expression on his face. He barks a brief order to a servant, sends them off after water, soaps and towels, before he disappears further into the building with his shivering Omega in his arms, Wynne right behind him and Chubby howling from behind the kitchen door.

The rest of them wait.

 

 

* * *

 

 

Wynne works on her for what seems like hours—checking again and again and again until Kallian is sick and tired of being prodded and poked at like a prize goat at a farmer’s fair and growls as much to the older Beta who huffs and forces her down on her stomach so she can attend her neck.

The mage’s fingers never touched the bitemark there, silvery and lightly raised from the rest of her body, but the snarl from Zevran has her drawing back immediately.

“Nothing is wrong that a good night’s bedrest and a session of healing can’t fix,” Wynne says as she packs together all of the supplies she brought with her. “I will see you later.”

The door closes behind her without a sound.

“Z-Zevran?”

Kallian’s voice is creaky and shivering and Zevran is beside her instantly.

“Hello, my Warden.”

“You weren’t there,” she whispers, almost accusatory. “You weren’t there, Zev… you _promised_!”

She’s crying now and the mix of tears and despair leaking from her is enough for him to almost gag. It’s certainly enough for everything inside of him that screams ‘Alpha’ to want to find whoever hurt her and _hurt them back_. Instead he takes her hand between his and gently nuzzles it against his cheek, presses his lips to her pulsepoint and leaves his scent behind. It soothes her, but only slightly, before it results in her curling tighter towards him with whimpering noises in the back of her throat.

Zevran is never going to admit it to anyone, but he’s quite sure that he falls just a little bit more in love with her in that moment.

“I am here now, sweet Kallian,” he promises and presses kisses to her eyelids, her forehead, the tips of her ears, as he showers her with as much affect as he can, as he washes away the stench of Fort Drakon and all its horrors. “And I shall never leave you like this, ever again.”

She makes a keening sound at him, a sound that is all Omega and vulnerability. He draws his arms around her, uncaring that her wet body immediately soaks his tunic.

“I will always be there, there does not exist a single force in this world strong enough to keep you from me.”

“Happily ever after doesn’t exist, Zevran. Not for people like me.”

“My Warden,” he presses a kiss to each of her eyelids. “My _amore_.” Another kiss is dropped, to her lips this time, before Zevran pulls back and _looks_ at her with expressive eyes and love hanging from every word he speaks.

“Yes, _it does_.”

And Kallian believes him.


End file.
